The Firemaker (13 page)

Li turned back into the detectives’ room to find all of them, including Margaret, watching him with ill-concealed smiles.

‘Anyway,’ Margaret said, ‘I think it’s time you took me to lunch, don’t you?’

‘She just asked him to take her to lunch,’ Lily translated quickly for the rest of the room, and they all waited with intense interest to see what Li’s response would be. He was trapped. She had just performed a huge favour for his boss, and therefore indirectly for him. The etiquette of
guanxi
required him to return the favour. And lunch was a very small price to pay. Except that his colleagues were unlikely to let him forget it in a hurry. He fumbled to remove his fob watch from the small leather pouch looped on to his belt and glanced at the time.

‘I don’t have much time, and it’s a little late,’ he said lamely.

Lily whispered a translation. ‘Aw, come on, boss,’ Wu said. ‘The least you can do is buy the lady some lunch.’

Margaret didn’t need a translation. ‘Something fast. A burger would be fine.’

Li knew there was no way out of it, and a tiny mischievous thought formed itself in his mind. ‘Okay. I know a place.’

‘I tell the driver to bring car round.’ Lily started for the door.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Li said quickly. ‘I’ll take a pool car. We’ll meet you back here in an hour.’ He held the door open for Margaret.

Lily scowled, displeased to be excluded from this outing, but in no position to argue.

‘Bye-bye,’ Wu called after them, in English.

Margaret stopped by the door, struggling to recapture what seemed like a very distant memory of an hour spent with a phrase book on the plane. ‘
Zai jian
,’ she said eventually, eliciting some laughter and some applause, and a chorus of ‘bye-byes’ from the other detectives.

II

Li picked up a dark blue Beijing Jeep in the street outside and they turned south and then west along Dongzhimennei Street. They sat in silence for several minutes as he appeared to focus all concentration on negotiating the traffic. Eventually Margaret glanced at him and said, ‘Lily said the detectives told her it was your uncle who sent the
feng shui
man.’

‘Yes.’ Li was not inclined to talk about it, but Margaret persisted.

‘So, it’s not widely practised in China now?
Feng shui
.’

Li shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But not officially. I don’t know very much about it.’

‘That’s a shame. Since it was the Chinese who invented it. It was an American Chinese who took the class I attended. He told us that the whole philosophy arose from the practice of the ancient Chinese religion of Taoism.’

‘What does an American Chinese know about Taoism?’ Li was scathing.

‘More than you, apparently.’

Li gave expression to his annoyance with a blast of his horn at a cyclist. ‘Taoism,’ he said. ‘From the word
tao
, literally meaning “the way”. It teaches us we must all find a place for ourselves in the natural way of things that does not disrupt the function of the whole. When we accept our place in the world, we become more concerned for the consequences of our actions, since for every action there is a reaction, and everything we do has a consequence for others.’

Beyond her surprise at this sudden and unexpected articulation of the centuries-old philosophy, Margaret made the connection for the first time with what Bob had been trying to tell her earlier; about Chinese society and the way it is reflected in its legal system; the sublimation of the individual in favour of the collective good; the realisation that none of us is alone in this world, that we are all interdependent.

Almost as if reading her thoughts, Li went on, ‘Of course, this is not just a Chinese philosophy. It has expression in much Western thinking. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main …”’

Almost automatically, Margaret recalled the lines from her classes in English Lit. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”’

‘Of course, John Donne was writing in seventeenth-century England,’ Li said. ‘He no doubt drew his inspiration from much older Chinese philosophies.’

Margaret could barely conceal her amazement. ‘They didn’t teach you John Donne at the University of Public Security.’

Li laughed at the idea. ‘No.’

‘At school?’

He shook his head. ‘My Uncle Yifu. He was educated at the American University in Beijing before the communists came to power in ’49. He was offered the chance to do a post-graduate course at Cambridge, in England. But he chose to stay and help build the new China.’ A shadow passed almost imperceptibly across his face. ‘You might say that my uncle was the embodiment of the philosophy of Taoism.’

‘And how did he help to build “the new China”?’ Margaret was sceptical.

But Li didn’t notice. His mind was transported to another place, another time. ‘He became a policeman.’

‘What?’

‘He was considered to be an “intellectual”. And in those days this was not a good thing to be. Free thinkers were dangerous. So he volunteered to join the police force and go to Tibet.’

Margaret blew a jet of air through pursed lips. ‘That’s a bit of a leap. From Cambridge post-grad to Tibetan cop.’

Li was philosophical. ‘It was how the world turned then. He and his wife walked to Tibet from their home in Sichuan.’

‘Walked!’ Margaret was incredulous.

‘There were very few roads in those days over the mountains to the roof of the world. It took them three months.’

This seemed extraordinary to Margaret. The only thing with which she could equate it was the brave trek west across the United States made by pioneers in the early nineteenth century. And yet this had been less than fifty years ago.

‘They brought him back to Beijing in 1960,’ Li said. ‘By the time he retired five years ago, he had become a Senior Commissioner, and was head of the Beijing Municipal Police. I have been staying with him in his apartment since I came here to the Public Security University.’

He wondered if Margaret could possibly divine from this how hard it had been for him to walk in the footsteps of such an uncle. Footsteps that had always been too big, the strides between them too long. If by some miracle he should ever manage to fill them and match the strides, he would be accused of having been given his uncle’s shoes. There was no way for him to win.

They were heading south now on North Xidan Avenue, and near its corner with West Chang’an Avenue Li pulled the car into the kerb outside a colourful restaurant with a red-and-green-striped wall and yellow awnings. A raised, double-sided entrance under a green-tiled arching roof led up to a self-service snack bar on the first floor. In a street jammed with bicycles parked side by side, row upon row under the trees, pavement hawkers of every description were selling their wares: face masks with extending and retracting moustaches; nylons that wouldn’t rip or ladder even when jabbed with a needle. An old lady sat with a pair of scales on which you could weigh yourself for a handful of
jiao
. The hawkers were attracting large crowds, who paused briefly to take in the blonde-haired, blue-eyed
yangguizi
who got out of the Jeep with the young Chinese. Margaret felt awkward and, not for the first time, noted that the Chinese were not in the least self-conscious about simply staring at her.

‘
Tianfu Douhua Zhuang
,’ Li said.

‘I’m sorry?’

He let her precede him up the steps. ‘It is the name of the restaurant.
Tianfu
meaning “land of abundance”, signifying my home province of Sichuan.
Douhua Zhuang
means “Tofu Village”. The food is excellent.’

The first floor was jammed with late diners cramming communal tables. Round the walls, pre-cooked dishes sat in bowls behind glass counters. People at the door were queuing for carry-out noodles. Li nodded towards the stairs. ‘There is a proper restaurant with a full menu on the second floor, but we are too late for lunch today. This is for snacks, but you can eat well. Okay?’

‘Sure,’ Margaret said, a little overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. ‘But you choose. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘Okay. You like noodles?’ She nodded, and he grabbed a tray and got them each a bowl of noodles. Then they made their way round the glass counters, Li choosing a range of dishes: boiled tofu with sauce, won-ton, skewered meat, pickled vegetable, sweet dumplings. Everything was smothered with spicy sauces. Li got them each a beer, paid and then found them a corner at a busy table, and they sat down. Conversation lulled momentarily at the table, curious faces turning in their direction, and then the pursuits of idle gossip once more took over and Li and Margaret were relegated to happy anonymity.

‘So …’ Margaret was anxious to pick up their conversation from the car. ‘You’re still living with your aunt and uncle?’

‘No. Just my uncle. My aunt died before I came to Beijing. I did not know her. My uncle has never really got over the loss of her.’

Margaret watched Li carefully, and helped herself from the bowls that he had just visited. The food was delicious, but within minutes a mild burning sensation in her mouth had turned into a searing heat. She gasped for breath. ‘My God, it’s hot!’ And she grabbed her beer, draining nearly half the glass in a single draught. She looked up and saw a smile playing about Li’s lips.

‘Sichuan food,’ he said, ‘is always spicy. It is good, yes?’

She was having hot flushes now, her face, she was sure, a bright pink, perspiration breaking out across her forehead. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You brought me here on purpose, didn’t you? You’re
trying
to burn the mouth off me.’

Li’s smugness infuriated her further. ‘This is the cuisine of my home,’ he said. ‘I thought you would be interested to try it. I did not realise your soft American palate would be so … sensitive.’

She glared at him. ‘You’re a complete bastard, Li Yan, you know that?’

He felt a thrill of pleasure, not only from the sound of his name on her lips, but from the fact that she had remembered it. She took another gulp of beer and he took pity on her. ‘No, no.’ He took the glass from her. ‘Drinking will not help.’ He took a sachet of sugar from his pocket and passed it to her. ‘This will help.’

‘Sugar.’

‘Sure. It will stop the burning.’

Still suspicious, she opened the sachet and emptied its contents into her mouth. Miraculously, as it melted, so did the heat in the sweetness. ‘It does,’ she said with surprise.

Li smiled. ‘Spicy and sweet. And therein you have the balance of opposites. Yin and yang. As in
feng shui
.’

‘I thought you didn’t know anything about
feng shui
,’ Margaret said suspiciously.

‘Not of its practice. But I understand the principles.’ He filled his mouth with more spicy food.

‘How can you do that?’ Margaret asked. ‘Doesn’t it burn you, too?’

‘I am used to it. And if you will eat some more now, you will find it does not burn so much and you will taste the flavours. And always take some noodles with each mouthful.’

Hesitantly, she followed his advice, and to her amazement the food did not seem quite as hot as it had. But she proceeded more cautiously now, sipping frequently at her beer. ‘So where did you learn to speak such good English? At school?’

‘No. We did learn English at school, but it was my Uncle Yifu who taught me to speak it properly. He said there are only two languages in the world worth speaking. The first is Chinese, the second is English.’

Margaret couldn’t help but notice the warmth in his eyes when he spoke of his uncle, and she realised, almost with a shock, that she had stopped seeing his face as Chinese, or as different in any way. It was just familiar now, a face she knew, a face she had even stopped seeing as ugly, for there was something deep and darkly attractive in his eyes.

‘He made me learn ten words every day,’ Li said, ‘and one verb. And he would test me on them, and make me practise. In Yuyuantan Park there is a place they call the “English Corner”. Chinese who speak English meet there just to talk to one another and practise speaking the language. Uncle Yifu used to take me there every Sunday morning and we would talk English until my head hurt. Sometimes there would be some English or American tourist or businessman staying in the city who would hear about the “English Corner” and come and make conversation with us. And that would be very special, because we could ask about slang and colloquialism and cursing that you cannot find in books. Uncle Yifu always says you only fully understand a society when you know which words they debase for swearing.’

Margaret smiled, seeing the truth in this. ‘Your uncle should have been a teacher.’

‘I think, maybe, he would have liked that. He never had any children of his own, so all the things a father would like to pass on to his son, Uncle Yifu has passed on to me.’ Li raised the noodle bowl almost to his lips, and scooped noodles quickly into his mouth with his chopsticks. ‘But I didn’t learn all my English from my uncle. I spent six months in Hong Kong after the handover, working with a very experienced English police officer who had decided to stay on. This was very good for my English. And then I was sent for three months to the United States to take a course in criminal investigation at the University of Illinois in Chicago.’

‘You’re kidding!’ Margaret shook her head in wonder. ‘I took that course.’

‘But you are a forensic pathologist.’

‘Sure, that’s what I’m experienced in, but I also had firearms training with the Chicago PD. Was a pretty good shot, too. And I took the course in criminal investigation because … well, because it does no harm to broaden your horizons. A year later I was teaching forensics part-time on the same course. That’s where I met your boss. It’s amazing we didn’t run into each other.’

Li nodded thoughtfully. ‘Your employer paid for you to take this course?’

‘Hell, no.’ Margaret smiled at the thought. ‘I took three months out at my own expense. I suppose I could afford to in those days. I had a husband who was working.’